Future expansion of higher education in India

The new government must do its best to put education and skill building in focus. That's the way the unemployment challenge can be tackled

While the political executive is busy with elections, some top class bureaucrats are busy making future plans for India. One such initiative came to my notice. The secretary of Department of Higher Education in government of India collected 70 people out of the who’s who of education in Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration (LBSNAA) Mussoorie for three days to brainstorm on strategies of higher education for India under the initiative of EQUIP, Education Quality Upgradation and Inclusion Programme. This consultation exercise made one thing very clear -- we need to completely redo the higher education landscape of India.

India is the sixth largest economy in the world and soon aspiring to be fifth. It has 14 crore population in the age group of 18 to 23, which is an age when most of them should be in colleges or polytechnic. However, only about 3.66 crore out of this group are found pursuing tertiary education, which is counted as gross enrolment rate (GER) of 26 per cent.

The comparable GER of Russia is 81 per cent and that of China is 51 per cent. The GER of most advance countries of North America and Europe is in excess of 80 per cent. The GER of India doubled in the last 10 years, the speed at which it may take us another 10 years to reach where China is today. When it comes to scheduled castes and scheduled tribes, the GER of this group is 21.8 per cent and 15.9 per cent.

While it is logical to aspire to double our GER in five years, it is neither feasible nor desirable. More than 80 per cent of the students passing out of class 12 are now entering higher education. Unless our GER for higher secondary goes up substantially, we can’t reach there. Also the programmes offered and accepted by students at present are not making them employable.

About 81 per cent of the total students in higher education are pursuing top 10 programmes only, which include: BA, 26.4 per cent; BA (Honours), 4.13 per cent; MA, 4.38 per cent; BSc, 13.38 per cent; B Com, 11.14 per cent; B Tech, 5.89 per cent; BE, 5.05 per cent; Diploma, 5.92 per cent; B. Ed, 2.89 per cent; and MSc., 1.97 per cent. While 50 per cent of the population depends on agriculture, less than 1 per cent are studying agriculture.

It is obvious that there is a huge chasm between the skill requirements of the Indian economy and the supply of graduates. While BA and MA degrees can make more aware citizens, their ability to contribute to the needs of the economy is low. As a result, we have already created a situation of having a huge pool of unemployed graduates and post graduates. Their failure to get economic returns from their education contributes to their social frustration.

Therefore, without re-orienting the entire higher education system towards meeting the economic aspirations of today’s youth, there is no gain in simply ballooning the student enrolment numbers in the existing manner. This will mean bringing in a lot of vocational and skill education in every degree programme.

What then are the choices before us? Business as usual is not the choice. For giving a big push to education, the public expenditure on education needs to be increased by at least 25 per cent more in one year and 15 per cent more in the successive years to reach the target of 6 per cent of GDP. As per Reserve Bank of India reports, the total state governments’ expenditure on education in 2017-18 was only 2.8 per cent of GDP, and if we add to that Central Government’s annual expenditure in that year, the total expenditure of state and centre is not exceeding 3.5 per cent of GDP.

In order to make education aligned to the needs of the economy, we would suggest that all degree courses, including BA, BSc, BCom, should have anything between 20 per cent and 35 per cent of their course content as vocational. This can easily be done using the vocational modules of Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) and aided by local artisan/ expert who can be hired on contractual basis. Bringing about improvement in the quality and relevance of courses will itself give a boost to GER.

The least expensive and the fastest way for expanding higher education is by using technology and by expanding the availability of open and distance learning (ODL) in the open universities as well as conventional universities. However, having a rigorous assessment and quality certification system is a must for ODL education. The perception about low quality of ODL graduate will improve largely by this measure. The course material used for distance learning can be a blend of MOOC modules and physical form.

The government can develop a network of MOOC delivery centres spread throughout the country, which can also function as the study centres of open universities and conventional universities. The current study centres can be upgraded with necessary IT and internet facilities. There is also a need to have all the available MOOCs translated in all the vernacular languages, which can be used by ODL system and by conventional universities also.

Recognition of National Skill Qualification Framework (NSQF) equivalent levels in recruitment rules for all government agencies and employers will result in increasing the attractiveness of qualifications through multiple means provided in NSQF framework and thus will incentivise young pass-outs from school to opt for NSQF based courses.

We do hope that the new government will do its best to put education and skill building in focus. That’s the way the big challenge of unemployment can be tackled.

The author is former finance secretary of India, and at present chancellor of Central University of Gujarat. Views are personal. Email: adhia03@hotmail.com.